Disappointed in Oceania Customer Service

[tobinater]

So disappointed in Oceania! We are about to go on our fifth Oceania cruise. We like to book our air with Oceaniaat least going with Oceania so that if there is a problem with the airline or any cancellations Oceania will get us to the next port. We booked premium economy going from Toronto to Lisbon. We are due to leave in November. Yesterday I went online and checked where our seats would be and low and behold we were not booked in the premium economy. Not only were we not booked in premium economy but the airline they booked us on does not even have premium economy! I got in touch with my travel agent who got in touch with Oceania and even though the invoice said premium economy they said that because I asked for custom air they dropped the premium economy. My husband is 6 foot two and would be totally uncomfortable in an economy seat for an overnight flight. We always book premium economy! Oceania  would not get us new flights, would not refund our old flights, and was not at all helpful! Very  very disappointed and no way to begin a holiday.
If I were in the Customer Service department at Oceania I would at least refund the cost of my flight in order to have a happy customer. It would be a small price to pay for our return allegiance. Just saying…….

[basor]

I saw your post on FB and commented there -

 

To understand, you requested custom air and so specific flights but the airline you requested does not have premium economy??

[Kay S]

Another reason to book your own air...just my opinion.

[Harters]

43 minutes ago, Kay S said:

Another reason to book your own air...just my opinion.

Just my opinion too. Oceania was such a pain to deal with over air, we would not use them again. 

[FetaCheese]

Suggestion:

Before booking Oceania cruise, Oceania Air, or any other item with Oceania, read and understand the Terms and Conditions applicable thereto.

[ak1004]

Never book air with any cruise line. NEVER. Always fly 1-2 days before to avoid any unpleasant surprises.

[JRIH]

Have used Oceania air 8 times and never a problem.

[Harters]

5 hours ago, ak1004 said:

Always fly 1-2 days before to avoid any unpleasant surprises.

Good advice. You really need to build in a cushion against something going wrong.  We'd fly the day before if it was to a destination in another European country but we'd decided on two days before to fly to Miami for a transatlantic (which meant leaving home on the Sunday for a Wednesday cruise day).

[PhD-iva]

14 hours ago, tobinater said:

So disappointed in Oceania! We are about to go on our fifth Oceania cruise. We like to book our air with Oceaniaat least going with Oceania so that if there is a problem with the airline or any cancellations Oceania will get us to the next port. We booked premium economy going from Toronto to Lisbon. We are due to leave in November. Yesterday I went online and checked where our seats would be and low and behold we were not booked in the premium economy. Not only were we not booked in premium economy but the airline they booked us on does not even have premium economy! I got in touch with my travel agent who got in touch with Oceania and even though the invoice said premium economy they said that because I asked for custom air they dropped the premium economy. My husband is 6 foot two and would be totally uncomfortable in an economy seat for an overnight flight. We always book premium economy! Oceania  would not get us new flights, would not refund our old flights, and was not at all helpful! Very  very disappointed and no way to begin a holiday.
If I were in the Customer Service department at Oceania I would at least refund the cost of my flight in order to have a happy customer. It would be a small price to pay for our return allegiance. Just saying…….

I’m very sorry this happened to you, and you really had me going and getting upset. Then, you said the words “custom air.” Custom air means that you specifically signed off on and authorized O to purchase tickets for a specific airline and the specific flights including a specific cabin class (e.g., economy). You authorized everything except possibly seat assignments. However, you did specifically authorize an economy ticket.
Did you possibly delegate everything to your travel agent? In which case the travel agent made an error?

I can see that inexpensive mistake was made, but it appears to have been your mistake or possibly your travel agent’s mistake, but not Oceania’s mistake.

[ORV]

I guess the OP moved on. 

[Woodrowst]

11 hours ago, ak1004 said:

Never book air with any cruise line. NEVER. 

Absolute qualifiers such as “never” (whether in caps or not) are typically not helpful because they do not allow any flexibility.  In the current environment of cruises changing embarkation/debarkation ports close to the sailing date it can be an advantage to book through a cruise line.  The line will adjust the flight schedule to the new location and you don’t have to go through the angst and change fees.  We had this happen to us and were so very glad we booked our air through Oceania.

[DrHemlock]

Never say 'Never'.  Romeo Void.  (Youngsters will have to look that one up.)

Edited Wednesday at 02:19 PM by DrHemlock

[ak1004]

10 minutes ago, Woodrowst said:

Absolute qualifiers such as “never” (whether in caps or not) are typically not helpful because they do not allow any flexibility.  In the current environment of cruises changing embarkation/debarkation ports close to the sailing date it can be an advantage to book through a cruise line.  The line will adjust the flight schedule to the new location and you don’t have to go through the angst and change fees.  We had this happen to us and were so very glad we booked our air through Oceania.

 

The money you save by booking yourself will cover any change fees you might occasionally have many times.

 

We asked for a quote for a business class several times. The price to upgrade to business class was similar to booking it yourself, but this is on TOP of the economy class price that they already charged you. You cannot upgrade from cruise only to business, have to buy cruise plus economy flight then upgrade to business.

 

Similar situation with SS, Uniworld and almost every cruise line.

 

The only time we booked business class through a cruise line was with SS because the price was reasonable, but when we asked to fly 2 days earlier, they requested $800 USD extra per person. Needless to say we took the air credit and booked independently.

 

Nothing comes free. You might have a piece of mind, but it comes at a huge cost. Same with hotels, same with ship excursions.

Edited Wednesday at 02:24 PM by ak1004

[ronrick1943]

5 hours ago, Harters said:

Good advice. You really need to build in a cushion against something going wrong.  We'd fly the day before if it was to a destination in another European country but we'd decided on two days before to fly to Miami for a transatlantic (which meant leaving home on the Sunday for a Wednesday cruise day).

Absolutely right, we always book air ourselves.  That way we have control of are travel 100%, and like others we always go in 2 days early minimum (sometimes more).

[Harters]

57 minutes ago, ronrick1943 said:

That way we have control of are travel 100%

My experiences relate to two transatlantic cruise. With the first which, in the end, we had to cancel, involved air booked by Oceania. It was very difficult to get the agent to understand that we needed to fly from our local airport to London on Day 1, so that we could guarantee catching the flight to Miami on Day 2. On the return flight, from Rome, O insisted that the flight was to be in two legs, with a several hours stopover in Germany, even though there were flights direct from Rome to my local airport. It involved several phone calls to get that far.

 

In comparison, when we did the transatlantic this year, we simply asked our TA to achieve what we needed as above. Fifteen minutes later she rang back with the complete package - and at a price that I'd been unable to get close to booking direct with the airlines. 

 

Our only error with transport, was taking up the TA's suggestion for the transfer from port to Rome airport. It looked like a reputable company but a driver simply failed to turn up at the port. Cost us €200 to get to the airport. Lesson learned - we'd do more research (including on CC) and book directly wit a company better recommended. 

 

 

Edited Wednesday at 03:23 PM by Harters

[Woodrowst]

9 hours ago, ak1004 said:

 

The money you save by booking yourself will cover any change fees you might occasionally have many times.

Different situations can have different outcomes.  I do not doubt your experience with pricing.  But in our case,  the business class airfare obtained through Oceania was less than anything we could find ourself.  

[Cruising Maryland]

3 hours ago, Woodrowst said:

Different situations can have different outcomes.  I do not doubt your experience with pricing.  But in our case,  the business class airfare obtained through Oceania was less than anything we could find ourself.  

I agree @Woodrowst. Our 50 day Grand Cruise came with Business Airfare as one of the perks. I was happy about that. Coming back from Rio, they booked us to JFK and then down to Wash DC. They gave us 1 hour and 15 minutes to get to JFK, get our luggage, clear customs,  and change terminals. There is no way we can do that in an hour and 15 minutes. called up my TA and she agreed, not enough time. There was a later flight down to DC, TA tried to get them to change our flight back to DC to the later flight. Everyone that she spoke to at O agreed that it wasn't enough time, but they wouldn't change it. We would have had to spend about 6 hours in NY to get the connecting flight, but we were OK with that. TA finally got to somebody higher up at O, and we finally got it changed. Of course, not to the later flight, but we are flying in to Miami and have 2 hours to clear customs now. I don't understand why they couldn't just change us to the later flight, but it turned into a total pain.